On the latest episode of Nat Malkus’s The Report Card podcast, Andy Rotherham and Rick Hess offered a helpful way to think about the present state of federal education policy.
This terrific “working paper” by distinguished AEI demographer Nicholas Eberstadt concludes with a fascinating (and worrying) appraisal of educational performance in China—perhaps no surprise, since he and his team wrote it with support from the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment.
Overall college attendance has declined in recent years, with persistent and widening gaps in access and retention along racial and
A look inside South Korea’s “cram school” culture, where preparation for hyper-competitive college entrance exams now begins in kindergarten.
Editor’s note: This story was produced by The 74, a non-profit, independent news organization focused on education in America.
Dr. Amber Northern, Fordham’s longtime research chief, has been tapped to redesign the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education. As she begins this important work, Checker Finn outlines the history of IES, highlighting progress, shortcomings, and the challenges she faces in this new role
Introduced in 2002 as part of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) was one of the best ideas in federal education policy—and one of its worst executions in recent memory.
The conservative education watchdog group Defending Education has done important and often brave work exposing ideological overreach in K–12 schools.
The nationwide push to create or expand private school access over the last few years—through vouchers, tax credits, or education savings accounts (ESAs)—has ignited parental curiosity in such choices. But has the supply side of the equation kept pace with that heightened demand (and opportunity)?
In a new study, researchers from Washington University in St. Louis use nine years of student-level data from public high schools in St. Louis and the surrounding suburbs to estimate the effects of in-school suspension (ISS) and out-of-school suspension (OSS) on a student’s probability of transferring to another school.
Missouri adds “grade level” reporting to state test results, addressing parent and stakeholder confusion about proficiency scores.
Ask most people where student achievement is strongest, and they’ll point to the Northeast: Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut—the usual suspects. And that’s been mostly true. These states have stronger tax bases and serve (on average) wealthier populations. They have long invested more in public education and built systems to protect it.
The Gates Foundation’s support for education reform has done much good. As the Foundation expends vast sums during its final twenty years, Finn urges Bill Gates to use his resources—financial, yes, but also influence—to press for fundamental changes in K–12 policies and practices.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently signed into law a universal education savings account program, breaking through years of legislative resistance.
The granting of tenure typically occurs after K–12 teachers have worked three years in the classroom. In many places, that’s it, just time-in-harness.
Since the pandemic, classroom disruptions have surged, prompting Texas lawmakers to push for stricter discipline policies.
A new wave of middle school math policies is poised to reshape who gets access to advanced math options, and when.
Earlier this month, Dana Goldstein of the New York Times argued that both political parties have abandoned the ed-reform agenda. Michael Petrilli responds, offering a robust agenda that would actually bring marked improvements to public schools.
Earlier this month, I was flattered to be invited to a conference at Marquette University Law School, sparked by an article I’d written making the case that education reform has misfired by prioritizing testing, measurement, accountability, and other structural reforms instead of trying to improve classroom practice. It’s an argument I’ve made elsewhere and the theme of my Substack.
The last decade’s political shifts have banished many previously popular education reforms to the proverbial wilderness. Charter schools, perhaps the most successful and lasting education reform in recent history, are not immune to these changes.
Pandemic school disruptions, frustrations with ineffective reading methods, and sinking test scores lit a fire under the nascent science of reading movement which has borne fruit
President Trump’s AI mandate for education raises concerns about data privacy, human connection, and critical thinking. —Jessica Grose, New York Times A rural Wyoming community decided to establish a charter school for students otherwise facing hour-long commutes.
Note to readers: This essay is adapted from a presentation I gave to policy advocates last week; I thought you might find it helpful as well.
Are Dana Goldstein and I watching the same state of education politics? She claims in the pages of the New York Times that, presently, “neither party, nor even a single major political figure,” wants to claim the mantle of education reformer.
If discipline disparities are really driven primarily by bias and systemic racism, we would expect to see the largest disparities in states with the most regressive racial attitudes. Yet mapping the data reveals a strikingly different picture. What if it’s not racism that mostly explains racial discipline disparities, but socioeconomic factors?
Over the past month, the Trump administration terminated $773 million in National Science Foundation (NSF) grants supporting STEM education research and innovation.
